Dressings for wounds provided with an adhesive layer that affixes the dressing to a user's skin are provided before use with a protection layer over the adhesive layer, partly in order to make the dressing easier to handle and partly in order to prevent, for example, dust adhering to the adhesive layer and hence reducing its adhesion. Traditionally, such protection layers have consisted of silicone-coated paper, so-called release paper, that has little adhesion to the adhesives that are traditionally used on dressings. Recently, the use of soft skin-friendly adhesives, primarily silicone-based adhesives, has increased. For such adhesives, silicone-coated paper does not work so well, as the adhesion between the silicone-based adhesive and the silicone coating on the paper is too strong. A plastic film is therefore often used as a protection layer for dressings provided with soft skin-friendly adhesive. Silicone-based adhesive can also be found on other products for affixing medical articles or the like to skin. Examples of such products are colostomy bags, fixing tape for tubes, surgical drapes or surgical instruments.
In order to reduce the adhesion of plastic films to adhesive layers on, for example, sanitary towels, a known method is to provide such a layer with a pattern of projections so that the contact surface between the film and the adhesive layer is reduced. JP 2005-171 030 shows a splicing tape with a silicone-based adhesive and a protection layer provided with a pattern of projections with a triangular or hemispherical cross section. Surprisingly, however, for dressings with very thin and flexible layers of carrier material and very soft adhesive, it has been found that the adhesion between a protection layer provided with projections and the adhesive layer increases considerably with time, and can sometimes even be stronger than for a protection layer without projections instead of being weaker, which was, after all, the intention of using a protection layer provided with projections.
It has also been found to be difficult to achieve an effective sterilization with ethylene oxide gas of dressings and other medical articles provided with soft skin-friendly adhesive and a protection layer of plastic film, irrespective of whether the protection layer was provided with projections or not.
The object of the present invention is to achieve an article of a medical and technical nature intended to be affixed to skin, or a component for affixing a medical article or a part thereof to skin, provided with a protection layer, with the adhesion between the protection layer and the article or component not being changed to any great extent when subjected to pressure and with an effective sterilization being able to be carried out by means of ethylene oxide gas.